


Didn’t Love Me True

by therumjournals



Category: Star Trek RPF
Genre: Big Bang Challenge, M/M, Pinto
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-10-13
Updated: 2015-05-23
Packaged: 2018-03-31 19:16:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 20,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3989584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/therumjournals/pseuds/therumjournals
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Chris wakes up one morning to learn that he has no recollection of the past two years of his life - and even more devastating, no memory of his relationship with Zach.  What he finds out about Zach’s role in his apparent amnesia sends his world spinning out of control.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally posted in October 2010, but for some reason I never uploaded it to AO3 when I uploaded the rest of my fic from LJ. Not sure how that happened, but...here it is, finally!

Chris woke up in an unfamiliar bed. He yawned, stretched, and was considering lifting his head to see where he was, when he heard a snuffle and felt something damp nuzzling into his palm. He smiled, opened his eyes all the way, and looked down over the side of the bed. “Hey, Noah,” he said sleepily. Of course. He was at Zach’s for the weekend, dog-sitting, cat-sitting, and going through Zach’s stuff while he was off at some kind of new age-y yoga retreat in Vancouver. Today was Sunday, and he was coming back tonight.

Chris felt his stomach do a little flip as he remembered the resolution that he’d made the night before. He felt his resolve fading fast in the light of day and under the intense scrutiny of Noah, who wore an expression that he seemed to reserve for Chris that said “Whatever you’re thinking of doing is a terrible idea. Now, put on my bandana and take me out to see my kingdom.” He needed back-up.

Luckily, he’d anticipated the need for moral support and asked Zoe to meet him for coffee at 10:00. Which was, shit, in fifteen minutes. He’d slept in a pair of track pants and a white t-shirt, so he slipped out of bed and washed his face, dumped a can of the good stuff into Noah’s bowl, pulled on a pair of sunglasses, and headed out the door.

He sat down across from Zoe, clutching his coffee as though his life depended on it. “Hey, Zoe!”

“Hey!” Zoe was smiling and looking gorgeous as usual. “Big day today!”

“Is it?” Chris furrowed his brow, trying to think what day it was.

“Isn’t Zach coming home today?”

“Oh. Yeah, of course.” Chris rolled his eyes under his sunglasses. He knew everyone liked to joke about how much time he and Zach spent together, but really, he’d only been gone three days. Did Zoe think he’d been crying into his beer that whole time? “Um, speaking of which, I need to ask you for some advice.”

“Okay. Hit me.”

Chris had been planning to build up his courage with some small talk, but the conversation had already led them here, so why the hell not.

“I think that…when Zach gets back… I think I’m going to tell him that… Ikindahaveathingforhim.” Chris said the last part in a rush of breath and braced for impact.

Zoe laughed and leaned forward conspiratorially. “I feel like he might already be under that impression,” she said, winking.

“What, really?” Chris asked, taken off guard. He supposed it was possible…okay, probable…that Zach had picked up on his little crush – despite the fact that Chris had only come to the realization a few months ago himself. But that wasn’t really the reaction he’d been expecting from Zoe, of all people.

Zoe raised a shapely eyebrow. “Yeah, really,” she said seriously, then promptly ruined the effect by laughing again.

“Why…what? Has he, like, said something to you?”

“Chris, what are you talking about?” Her face had taken on a look of honest confusion. “Did you guys get in a fight or something?”

“A fight? No, I haven’t talked to him all weekend. Why are you acting like it’s so obvious that I like him?”

“Well, the fact that you guys have been married for almost a year is a pretty big clue.”

Oh, so that’s what this was about. “Oh, very funny, Zoe. Look, can’t two guys just hang out without people jumping all over them about it? Hell, you hang out with him just as much, and I don’t say you two are married!”

Zoe’s face had twisted into an expression of (still gorgeous) concern, as she reached across the table and took hold of his left hand. “I’m talking about this, Chris,” she said, in a tone reserved for particularly slow kindergartners. She held his hand up in front of his face, and he got his first glimpse at the silver ring shining on his fourth finger.

He yanked his hand away to peer at the ring. He could feel himself gaping in disbelief, and his confusion was only magnified by the sincerity of Zoe’s worried frown.

“Zoe. What. The Fuck. Is this?” He held up his hand.

“It’s your wedding ring? Chris, are you okay? You’re kind of scaring me.”

Chris’s head was spinning and he swallowed dryly as he tried to come up with some kind of explanation. He’d been positive that Zoe had been messing with him, but then what the fuck was up with this ring? This was some kind of prank, obviously, some kind of Zoe-and-Zach thing - maybe Zach was already home? Maybe he’d snuck in last night and slipped the ring on Chris’s finger? Jesus, that was a lot of trouble for one prank. But it had obviously worked, as Chris had legitimately wondered for about five seconds whether he’d gotten drunk and married Zach sometime in the past year. He took a deep breath, took a sip of his coffee, and pulled his sunglasses off so he could give Zoe his most serious “don’t fuck with me” glare.

“Where’s Zach?”

“What?”

“Well, obviously you two planned this thing -- very funny by the way -- so where is he if he’s back already?” Chris glanced around the coffee shop, fully expecting to see Zach hiding behind a plant or something.

“What prank, Chris? And you’re the one that told me that Zach’s not getting back from Prague until tonight.”

“PRAGUE? What the hell was Zach doing in Prague?!”

Zoe’s expression of concern had escalated to the kind of look that usually precedes having someone committed. She kept her voice level in the face of Chris’s increasing hysterics. “He was filming – well, at least he was when the producers weren’t throwing hissy fits and delaying production. Wait, where did you think he was?”

“What do you mean where did I think he was? He’s in Vancouver on a fucking yoga retreat! He told me about the…the fasting and the sweat! It sounded terrible!”

Zoe furrowed her brow again. “A yoga retreat? Wait a second. Chris, do you think you’re…dog-sitting Noah?”

“I _am_ dog-sitting Noah.”

“Chris.” Zoe reached across the table and put a gentle hand on his arm. “Okay, look. This is going to sound really weird, but…what do you think today’s date is?”

Oh, that was good. She was really working the part here. Obviously he’d lost his memory and THAT was why he couldn’t remember getting married to Zachary motherfucking Quinto. He rolled his eyes. “It’s March 28, 2010. Wait, is this some kind of April Fool’s thing? Because you guys are a few days too early.” He laughed nervously.

Zoe looked like her eyes were about to pop out of her head. She pulled her phone out of her purse, typed in a website, and handed the phone to Chris. It was the front page of the New York Times and the date read March 25, 2012.

“Chris, please tell me you’re fucking with me,” Zoe said. Chris shook his head, not trusting himself to speak. “Chris?” He looked at her. “I think you need to go to the doctor.”

**

“Tell me.”

“I’m not sure I should.”

“Come on, Zoe, please. Just tell me.”

He’d pulled some strings to get a doctor’s appointment for 3 PM and now he and Zoe were sitting on Zach’s couch, waiting.

“I’ve heard that you’re not supposed to tell an amnesiac everything about his life. It can disrupt the reintegration of true memories by making you think that you remember what you’ve been told.”

Chris gave her a look. “Someone’s been watching too many soap operas. Or reading a psychology textbook or something. I do not have amnesia!”

“Chris, you don’t remember the last two years of your life! What else do you call that?”

“I call it…you fucking with me,” Chris said, flailing his arms around.

“Chris.” Zoe got off the couch and walked over to the bookshelf. She pulled out a photo album and sat down next to Chris, opening the book on her lap. “Look.”

She opened to the first page, a beautiful full page picture of Chris and Zach, wearing white suits and holding hands and looking blissfully happy. Chris stared at the picture in horrified disbelief. “We wore _white suits_?!”

Zoe rolled her eyes, and Chris flipped another few pages in the photo album.

“Jesus.” He shook his head, pausing on a picture of Zach. He looked absolutely stunning, there was no denying it, and Chris felt a strange surge of pride to be unknowingly married to such a fine specimen. He shook his head. He really couldn’t let himself start thinking things like that, or he might actually go insane. He had to take this one step at a time, and figure out what the hell was wrong first.

Suddenly struck by a thought, he jerked his head up to stare at Zoe. “Shit, Zoe. Are we…are we filming?!”

Zoe shook her head. “We start read-throughs next week.” She pointed to the calendar that hung outside the kitchen, where April 3 was circled in red and Zach had written _**kirk + spock forever!!**_

“Well, at least I didn’t miss the important stuff,” he said, laughing weakly. His mind was jumping all over the place, frantically touching on questions and hitting realizations that he couldn’t even bear to think about. “So…I don’t have my apartment anymore, do I?” Zoe shook her head. He looked around, noticing for the first time that his stuff was here, in Zach’s house. There were his books on the bookshelf, his robot action figures on the windowsill, looking for all the world like they belonged. He shook his head again, like he was trying to shake something into place. Something was bothering him – well, many things were bothering him, but…

“Zoe, if I woke up thinking it’s two years ago, how did I know we were supposed to meet for coffee today?”

“We’ve been meeting for coffee every Sunday for the past two years, whenever we’re both in town. It’s kind of our thing. Come to think of it, the first time we met for coffee was that weekend you were talking about. You were dog-sitting while Zach was in Vancouver. I remember because you left me this amazing drunken message saying you needed ‘mortal support’ because you’d made a ‘revolution’,” she laughed, making air quotes. “Man, I had that message on my phone for like a year.”

“Oh, great.” Chris rolled his eyes before he lapsed into thought again. “So, when we met for coffee that day, did I tell you that I wanted to tell Zach I liked him?”

Zoe shook her head. “Nope. You were…a little hung over.”

Chris bit his lip. He’d had approximately one and a half bottles of red wine the night before in the process of strengthening his resolve.

“Actually we only hung out for about an hour that time. Then Zach called you and told you he was getting back early and he had some kind of surprise for you, and you ran off and left me here like you were about to miss Christmas morning.”

Chris frowned. “Sorry.”

“No hard feelings.”

“Then what?”

“Then…I didn’t see either of you guys for like a week, and the next time we hung out, you two spent the entire night giggling like school girls and necking in the back booth at Luna Lounge.”

“Necking? Who says that?”

“Fine, groping. That better?”

“So I guess I did tell him.”

Zoe shrugged. “Guess so. Whatever you did, it worked.”

Chris ran a hand over his face, willing himself not to hyperventilate as he tried to process what Zoe was telling him. Assuming this was really happening – and it seemed more disturbingly every second that it actually was – Chris had literally forgotten the past two years of his life. He stood up, and Zoe watched him nervously from the couch as he paced. Two fucking years – years that were apparently full of some significant things, like telling Zach he liked him and marrying Zach and – oh god, kissing Zach and wait, _fucking_ Zach? He stopped pacing as a wave of dizziness passed over him, and he put a hand out on the bookshelf to steady himself.

After a few deep breaths, his head began to clear, his eyes flitting across the shelf, and - “What the FUCK?!” Chris yanked a DVD case off the shelf, knocking off two identical copies of _On the Road_ in the process. He scrunched his eyebrows as he stared at the DVD cover, confused and then angry. The anger took him by surprise, and he felt his face go hot as he turned and thrust the DVD toward Zoe.

“Zoe?” he said, his voice rising dangerously. “What the fuck is this?”

“Oh, yeah. I guess you wouldn’t remember that…”

“ _PRINCESS DIARIES 3_?” He was yelling now. “I don’t remember fucking _Princess Diaries 3_?! Zoe, what the fuck is going on here?”

“Well, the whole Jack Ryan thing fell through, so I guess you were looking for something else…”

“Zoe, I swore, I SWORE, I would never, ever agree to fucking _Princess Diaries 3_. Did I go insane? Seriously, tell me. Did I have brain damage or something? That would explain a lot. Because I honestly cannot imagine a single other circumstance that would make me agree to be in fucking _Princess Diaries 3_.”

Zoe held her arms out, placating him. “Chris, calm down, okay?”

Chris felt like he was on the edge of tears, his face crumpling as he tried hard to hold it together in front of Zoe. “I have brain damage,” he said matter-of-factly. “It’s the only explanation.” He took a deep breath. For a minute, he felt better, knowing what was wrong. Then it all came crashing back over him and he looked helplessly at Zoe.

“I’m not sure what to tell you, Chris. As far as I know, you really were okay with it at the time. I mean, the whole thing was filmed in SoCal so you never had to be far from Zach.” Chris noticed the subtitle then: _Princess Diaries 3: Next Stop, Hollywood_. He shuddered against his will as his smiling face stared back at him from what was supposed to be a red carpet, holding onto Anne Hathaway with one hand and a shiny gold Oscar with the other. How fucking ironic.

He sat down heavily on the couch and wondered if 12:30 wasn’t too early to go sit in the waiting room at the doctor’s office. Maybe he’d get seen early. He felt Zoe’s hands clasp one of his comfortingly and he looked at her, his face drained of emotion.

“What’s happening?” he croaked.

“I don’t know, honey. I don’t know. I wish I knew how to help you, but Zach is probably on the plane already and he’ll be here soon, okay?”

“Oh god,” Chris said, as a new wave of fear washed over him. What was he going to tell Zach? _“Hi honey, welcome home, I have no fucking memory of our life together.”_ Oh god.

“And you’re going to see the doctor, and everything is going to be fine,” Zoe said, patting his hand. Maybe it made her feel better to say it.

“Zoe…” Chris had his eyes closed as he tried to think through the swirling confusion in his mind.  
“Did I ever…act weird? I mean, like, not myself? Maybe I was sick or something and I just got better? Maybe I have a brain tumor.”

“You were always yourself, Chris. You didn’t go insane or act crazy or anything like that. You’ve been…really happy these past two years. Hell, the paps have gotten pictures of you smiling and everything. And it’s not because of a brain tumor, Chris. We’ve all noticed, and it’s obvious – it’s because of Zach.”

Chris really did feel like crying then, and it was because he’d known, just 24 hours earlier, he’d _known_ that what Zoe said was true – that if he told Zach how he felt, and if Zach felt the same way, that he _would_ be happy. Just thinking about it had made him smile, and apparently he’d been right, but he’d missed it, all of it, and now he felt like he was drowning in the unknown, with nothing of his life to hold on to. He stood up abruptly and strode toward the door, grabbing his keys from the table.

“Where are you going?” Zoe called behind him.

“To the doctor!”

“It’s too early, Chris.”

“I don’t CARE!” he said, slamming the door shut behind him. He paused on the walkway, looked down at the keys in his hand, and turned to go back inside.

Zoe looked at him from the couch, her eyes wide and sad.

“Can you drive me?” His hands were shaking as he held out his keys.

Zoe stood, nodding. “Sure, honey. Sure, let’s go.”

**

“Well that was entirely unhelpful,” Chris said, staring out the windshield as Zoe drove out of the parking lot of the doctor’s office.

“Don’t say that, Chris”

“Why not? That doctor has no idea what’s wrong with me. ‘Did you hit your head?’,” he said, imitating the doctor’s bored monotone. “I don’t fucking REMEMBER if I hit my head, asshole, that’s the whole point! Fuck!” He smacked the dashboard in frustration.

“Chris, honey, calm down. You’ll have the CAT scan tomorrow, and you’ll see the specialist, and they’ll figure out what this is. You can’t be the first person that this has ever happened to.”

“Great,” Chris said, tipping his head back. “Maybe there’s a support group. Hi, my name is…I have no fucking clue.” He laughed humorlessly, and Zoe patted his knee.

“Do you want me to stay with you?” she asked. “Until Zach gets home?”

Zach. A mix of emotions played in Chris’s chest. “Maybe…” he said in whisper, “maybe when I see him, I’ll remember. Maybe it will all come back.”

“Maybe,” Zoe said, obviously trying to sound as hopeful as possible.

Or maybe it wouldn’t, and he’d be left there, standing nervously in front of Zach, exactly as he’d imagined last night – only with several key differences. And the speech he’d had prepared, the one where he told Zach that he’d realized something, that what he felt for Zach was more than just friendship, that he thought maybe Zach felt the same… All of that would be scrapped, thrown by the wayside, and Zach would be looking at him, the love that Chris had hoped to see already there in Zach’s eyes, only Chris would be telling him “I don’t remember”…. The thought made him sick to his stomach. But he had to tell Zach. He knew that.

Of course he had to tell Zach that he didn’t remember.

Or…did he?

**

Chris stood at the top of the darkened stairway as he listened to Zach’s key in the lock. He took a deep breath, and pushed down the sick sense of wrongness squirming in his stomach. He’d made his decision. Zach pushed opened the door, and Chris drew on his years of training, tried to imagine how he would act if he came home to Zach – with Zach – every night. If he was going to do this, he had to do it right.

“Chris?” Zach called, dropping his bags by the door. “Honey, I’m home!”

Chris ran down the stairs and threw himself into Zach’s arms. Zach laughed and wrapped his arms around Chris, pressing his face into Chris’s neck and breathing in his scent. It wasn’t like they had never hugged before. It wasn’t even like they had never hugged like _this_ before, arms tight around each other, Zach’s hand moving against his back as they swayed a little in place. Chris squeezed his eyes shut and let himself enjoy it, let himself believe, just for a minute, that this was how things were.

“Missed you so much,” Zach said into his neck and it was easy to say it back, because it was true.

“I missed you, too.”

Then Zach pulled back and smiled at him and leaned in and then they were kissing, a soft peck on the lips and then Zach’s tongue in his mouth and…fuck. Chris couldn’t help it, the words _first kiss_ floating through his mind, even though it wasn’t, apparently, it was their millionth, and Chris felt something break inside him when he thought about how much he’d missed.

But apparently this kiss was no different than the others, as far as Zach could tell, because when he pulled back he was smiling again and there was a gleam of lust in his eye. He slid his hands down to grip Chris’s ass, and Chris could feel Zach’s erection pressing into his thigh. He let Zach press against him as he felt his own cock respond.

“I’m gonna jump in the shower,” Zach said through another kiss. “Want to join me?”

“Hell, yeah,” Chris said, and he was pleased to hear himself take to the role so easily, playing himself without a script.

He felt Zach’s hands slide around to his waist and tug up on his t-shirt, so he lifted his arms, let Zach pull the shirt off over his head. Then Zach’s mouth was on his chest, tongue swirling wetly around his nipples, and he was nuzzling into Chris’s neck and mumbling “Fuck, fuck, Chris, need you, god.” Chris reached for Zach’s shirt, trying to keep up, but Zach shook his head and smiled as he reached for Chris’s fly. “You first,” Zach said, and there was a mischievous gleam in his eye as he unzipped Chris’s pants and slid his hands inside, gripping and squeezing at Chris’s ass. “Take these off,” he said, and Chris complied, too lust-dazed to even think anymore, to think of anything but how fucking hard he was and how much he couldn’t wait to find out what happened next. As he stepped out of his pants and boxers, Zach took a step back and looked him up and down, a ravenous look in his eyes as he rubbed his palm over the bulge in his jeans. He gestured with his chin toward the stairs. “Let’s go.”

Chris turned and ran naked up the stairs. He could feel Zach’s hot gaze behind him, could hear the soft sound of Zach’s shirt falling to the floor, his zipper sliding down, and then they were in the bathroom, and Zach was naked, too, their bodies pressed together. Zach’s mouth was hot on his skin, kissing and sucking at his neck, one hand clutching possessively at the back of his head while the other arm was wrapped firmly around his waist. “God,” Zach said, his voice breaking. He plunged his tongue into Chris’s mouth, hard and unyielding, and Chris could only hold on for the ride, every press of Zach’s fingers into his skin, every swipe of his tongue going straight to his cock. Then Zach was pressing his face into Chris’s shoulder, nipping lightly at his skin as he spoke. “Five weeks, Chris, fuck. Too fucking long. Never again, I promise, I won’t ever leave you for that long again.”

“No,” Chris said, tipping his head back, tangling a hand in Zach’s hair. His cock was hard and leaking against Zach’s belly and he was babbling, “Never again, Zach.” Five weeks, two days, two fucking years. Chris didn’t even know anymore, but it was too long, far too long, and he didn’t think he could ever go without this again.

Zach reached behind him to turn on the shower, and the blast of hot water made him gasp, his hands suddenly slick against Zach’s back as he clung to him instinctively. Zach’s tongue traced drops of water down his jaw and Chris felt him chuckle against his neck. “God, Chris, I don’t even know where to start.” He trailed his fingertips down Chris’s side and slid his hand between them to wrap a fist around Chris’s cock. “I want to do everything with you right now, I missed it all so much.”

Chris thrust his hips, pushing into Zach’s hand, and it felt so good, so fucking good, but Zach was making him realize that there was so much more to experience. He murmured a suggestion into Zach’s shoulder. “Do what I like best.”

Zach’s laugh was a low rumble in his ear, and Chris gasped at the loss of contact as Zach pulled his hand away and reached over to grab something from the soap dish. He indulged himself with a series of bites and kisses against Zach’s chest, and it was every fantasy he’d ever had and just as good as he’d imagined. Zach slid a finger down his ass crack and he pressed forward, his cock touching Zach’s, throbbing against it, he wanted to rut against him, and _FUCK_. He inhaled sharply as Zach slipped a slick finger into his entrance without prelude, without apology, sliding it out then in again as Chris swallowed dryly.

“I like this?” he whispered, unbelieving, into Zach’s ear. And thank god, Zach didn’t even realize it was a question, just smiled and said “I know you do, baby. Fuck, I know you do, I love it when you ask for it, when you fucking beg me for it.” And now Chris was clinging onto Zach’s shoulders for dear life as Zach fucked him on two fingers, and it was strange and different and he was pushing himself up on his tiptoes, urging Zach to go deeper and _fuck_ that felt good.

“Remember last week, baby?” Zach breathed, never ceasing the slick press of his fingers, twisting them now, wiggling them inside of him. “When we were on the phone, remember? You were telling me how much you missed this, god, you were telling me how much you missed my big dick fucking into you, you told me you were imagining it and that you had three fingers inside of you.” Zach complemented the image by adding a third finger, and Chris squeezed his eyes shut as burst of pleasure and pain shot through him, and he could almost imagine what Zach was describing and oh, how he wished that he remembered. “Oh fuck, Chris, god, I love you so fucking much, only you, you have no idea, no idea how hard I came that night thinking about you, missing you, oh _fuck_.”

Chris felt Zach’s hand gripping his shoulder, fingers slipping out as Zach turned him around and pressed him against the cool wall of tile. He heard the slap of skin as Zach stroked himself, then something nudging against his entrance, and he moaned in anticipation, fear and desire in equal measure. “You ready?” Zach asked. No, no he wasn’t, but that didn’t stop him from gasping out “Yes,” as his fingers curled against the wall.

Zach slid into him in one smooth thrust, all the way in, and Chris could feel everything, every inch of Zach’s cock inside him, filling him, and Chris opened his mouth in a silent scream. But Zach’s arm was strong around his chest, and his words were a steady pulse in Chris’s ear, relaxing him, reminding him of things he’d never known, “you feel so good, Chris, you’re so beautiful, I love this, I love you, so fucking good.” Stars were bursting behind Chris’s eyes as Zach slammed into him, wrenching moans from Chris’s throat, a repetitive “oh, oh, oh” that echoed off the shower walls. He felt Zach’s hand skate down across his stomach, brushing lightly against his clenched abs, “yeah, that’s it, Chris, so fucking tight, so hot,” and down a little farther to tease at the head of his cock.

“Zach, fuck…please,” Chris said, wondering if he always pleaded like this, or if his desperation to know how it felt would give him away. But Zach didn’t seem to notice, squeezing around Chris’s shaft in response, stroking him in rhythm with his thrusts.

“Yeah, Chris…fuck, come for me, baby,” Zach panted, and Chris wanted to, and he was almost there, he barely even knew where it was coming from, this heat washing over him, building up behind his balls, but he wanted to, for Zach. “Show me how happy you are that I’m home,” and Chris lost it, coming so hard it hit his chest and the tile and Zach’s hand. Zach’s hand, which was curling around his shoulder now as Zach’s breath came hot against his neck, almost sobbing against his skin, never stilling as Chris felt the pulse of his cock as Zach came, pumping relentlessly until they were both shaking.

It was all they could do just to slide to the floor of the shower, and Zach tipped his head back against the wall and smiled up into the water before he opened his eyes and turned his grin on Chris.

“Jesus,” he breathed. “That was amazing.”

Chris nodded his agreement, but the world was spinning as reality crashed down on him once again. That. Fuck. That had been amazing, and when he thought about how many times they had done that, how many times he could have remembered, he almost wanted to do it again right away, just to make sure he wouldn’t forget.

**

Chris woke up in a panic, because someone was touching him, someone’s hands were moving on him, across his chest and someone’s lips- Chris’s eyes shot open and he gasped as it all came back to him, the amnesia and the ring and the shower and Zach. Zach. Zach, who was looking down at him, running a hand over his chest, a thumb brushing across his nipple, and that devastating smile, all for him. “Morning, sweetie,” Zach said, and he kissed Chris’s neck and slid his hand down to tug him closer, pressing his erection against Chris’s thigh.

“Morning,” Chris said, trying desperately to stay calm, torn between wanting to run away and wanting that mouth back on his, that tongue curling against his own, but that wouldn’t be right, would it, and fuck he had no idea what was right anymore. His fucking husband was looking down at him, kissing him, moving to straddle him and crawling up over him, whispering “Want your mouth so bad, Chris,” and Chris flinched back into his pillow, squeezing his eyes shut. Jesus Christ, he’d never sucked a dick before, shit, he’d never even _seen_ a dick this close before, hard and huge and inches above his face. And yeah, objectively, he wanted it, he wanted Zach, wanted to make him feel good, which no doubt involved some mouth-on-cock action, but not like this, no warning, no practicing on a…a cucumber or something, and fuck, he couldn’t do this.

All of these thoughts rushed through Chris’s mind in a matter of seconds, and he turned his head away, saying “Zach, uh, can we, uh, not do this right now, I mean…” Zach paused above him and Chris cracked an eye open to see him looking down, confusion and concern written across his face. “I just, uh…I have a sore throat.”

A flash of disappointment crossed Zach’s face, but he moved off of Chris, flopped down beside him, saying “It’s okay, baby.” He gripped his cock loosely and stroked, giving Chris a lascivious look. “Wanna watch?”

And okay, yeah, _that_ Chris could handle, but he didn’t answer, because he was busy staring and his mouth was hanging open a little as he watched Zach touch himself, slender fingers wrapping around that perfect cock. Zach tightened his grip and pumped a little faster, biting his lip, tossing his hair out of his eyes and he lay back against his pillow. He raised an eyebrow and nodded toward Chris’s crotch, and Chris reached down to press a palm against his own aching erection. “Come on, baby,” Zach encouraged him. “Let me see.” Chris slid his shorts down, feeling shy and warm and ridiculously turned on, and he wasted no time stroking himself, thrusting into his dry fist, his eyes flitting between Zach’s cock and his dark, approving gaze. Chris was moaning already, writhing on his back as he jerked himself hard and fast, and Zach’s breath was becoming more erratic as he asked “You gonna come, Chris? You ready?”

“Unhh, yeah,” Chris panted, arching his back, too close to wonder why Zach was turning toward him, pushing himself up on an elbow. Heat pooled in Chris’s groin and he gave a strangled yell as he felt his orgasm crash over him, just as Zach squeezed his eyes shut and unloaded across Chris’s chest.

“Fuck,” Chris said, looking down in disbelief at his chest, splattered white as Zach’s come mingled with his and slid wetly down his sides. “Fucking fuck.”

“I know, right,” Zach said with a wink. He ran a hand through his hair and sat up, offering Chris a hand. “You can get the first shower.”

**

Chris had meant to get dressed and out of the house to go to his appointment before Zach got out of the shower, but he had some trouble finding his own clothes (and where the hell had his brown shoes gone anyway? Surely he wouldn’t have gotten rid of those?) He settled on a t-shirt and jeans that he thought were his plus a pair of sneakers, and he was grabbing his keys and heading for the door when he heard Zach’s voice behind him.

“Hey, where are you sneaking off to?” Zach asked.

“Oh, um. I’m, um, having lunch. Er, brunch. With, uh, Patrick.” He crossed his fingers behind his back, hoping that he was still friends with Patrick, that Patrick even lived in LA still, his brain aching again from the absurdity of the situation.

“Oh,” Zach said, frowning a little as he toweled at his hair. “I’m not invited?”

“Oh, well, uh, I just wasn’t sure if…I mean, I didn’t think…”

“No, no, it’s cool. It’s fine. I’ll see you when you get back.”

“Uh, okay. Yeah, okay. See you.”

“Have a good time!”

Chris nodded and stepped out the door, resisting the urge to break into a run.

**

The tests took forever and no one would answer his questions, which were all variations on the theme “what the fuck is wrong with my brain?” The doctors and techs counseled patience, told him to wait and see what the tests turned up, but Chris frowned and clutched at his hair while inside he was screaming, going crazy with not knowing, not only what was wrong but what came next.

He didn’t want to go…home? To Zach’s? He didn’t even know what to call it, so instead he went to a bookstore and let his eyes glaze over at neurology textbooks as he sipped decaf (the doctor had advised him to avoid caffeine, as if that’s what had caused the problem. Sorry, doc, but if caffeine was the problem, he was pretty sure his last memory would be somewhere around junior high.) Finally, he made himself stand, made himself get in the car and drive back, and he only waited ten minutes in the car before he got the courage to go back into the house.

Zach was waiting at the door when he stepped inside, and he looked furious. Chris felt something collapse inside him, because this was the last thing he needed; he was barely keeping it together as it was.

“What the fuck is going on, Chris?”

“What?”

“Where the hell were you? I called Patrick, he said you didn’t have any plans with him today.”

Chris felt himself prickle with anger. “So what, you check up on me now?”

Zach gave him a look like it was obvious. “I always do, Chris, we talk like fifteen times a day. Usually you would have texted me half a dozen times by now, you know how I worry about you! And why the hell isn’t your phone on?”

“Shit,” Chris said, reaching into his pocket. “I had to turn it off because of the machines,” he said distractedly, looking down at the phone. “I forgot to turn it back on.”

“The machines?”

Shit. “Um.”

“What’s going on, Chris? Why aren’t you telling me everything? Were you with someone?”

“No, I was…I was at the hospital.”

“Oh my god.” Zach reached for him, gripped him by the arm, his face distraught. “Are you sick? Chris, are you sick, please, tell me, god.” He had a hand over his mouth; the other was squeezing him, hard.

“Ow, Zach, you’re hurting me. Look, can we…I think we should maybe sit down for a minute.”

Zach pulled him into the living room and let him take a seat on the couch. He dropped to his knees in front of Chris, looking up at him, his eyes pleading, and his voice cracked as he asked, “What’s happening?”

Chris ran a hand over his face and rested his elbows on his knees. “I’m not sick.” Zach’s shoulders sagged in relief and he rested his arms on the couch, his hands scratching lightly at Chris’s thighs.

Chris took a deep breath, but he couldn’t make himself look into Zach’s eyes as he told him, “Something’s wrong with…with my memory. I….don’t remember.” He looked at Zach then, and his voice broke as his eyes filled with tears. “I don’t remember anything, Zach.”

“What...” Zach started, but Chris shook his head, shaking the tears loose, and they flowed down his cheeks.

“The past two years. It’s like they never happened. I don’t remember…us.”

“No.” Zach’s voice was confused.

“Yes, Zach. I woke up and I thought it was two years ago and I…I….” Sobs overtook him and he pressed his hands to his face. He felt Zach move to sit beside him, to wrap his arms around Chris, and Chris was torn between slumping into them and pulling away. Instead he just sat stiffly and felt his shoulders shake with sobs. “I went to the doctor,” he choked out. “They don’t know what’s wrong, I…Zach, I’m sorry. _I don’t remember._ ”

“Shhh, baby, it’s okay. Listen to me, Chris, it’s going to be okay.”

“I don’t know,” Chris said, his voice raw. “I don’t know.”

“It is, Chris. I love you, I…” Zach stiffened, pulled back to look at him. “You don’t remember falling in love with me.”

Chris huffed out a laugh and shook his head. “I do remember,” he said. “It’s the last thing, I remember, actually. Realizing that I was in love with you.” He brought his eyes up to meet Zach’s. “I just…I don’t remember telling you.”

“Telling me?” Zach asked, and Chris saw him blinking back his own tears.

Chris nodded. “I was going to tell you. When you got home from Vancouver. I remember that. I remember wanting to tell you, and then…nothing.”

Zach was pulling away from Chris, wiping at his eyes with the palms of his hands, trying to keep his voice clear despite the tears sliding freely down his cheeks. “You were going to tell me,” he said, and there was something in his voice that Chris couldn’t quite identify. He glanced at Zach.

“I told you, didn’t I? I must have. And then you must have told me that you felt the same. Zoe said we were so happy. Is that what happened?”

Zach looked at him, smiling through his tears. “Yeah, baby. That’s what happened.” He wrapped his arms around Chris again, pulled him close. “We were so happy. We still are, Chris. Everything is going to be okay, I promise.” He kissed Chris on the cheek, kissed him again and again, running his fingertips over Chris’s face.

Chris let Zach kiss him, and reached up to hold Zach’s palm against his cheek. He shook his head. “You know, this feels…so strange to me.” He brought his eyes up to meet Zach’s. “You don’t realize…it feels new, it feels like…the beginning.”

Zach nodded, clearly trying to understand. “So last night…”

Chris’s voice was a whisper. “It was like…the first time. I’m sorry, Zach, I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you then, I just…I wanted to know what it was like.”

Zach closed his eyes and swallowed. “I understand.”

“Maybe I should go, Zach, maybe I should stay at Zoe’s tonight. I have another doctor’s appointment tomorrow…”

Fear shot through Zach’s eyes and he clutched at Chris’s hand. “No! Please, Chris, please stay with me, please. I need you, I … we don’t have to do anything, I just…I want you here with me, I want to make sure you’re okay.”

“Okay,” Chris said, nodding. “Okay, I’ll stay.” Zach leaned in and kissed him softly on the lips and he whispered again, “I’ll stay.”

**

They moved cautiously around each other, like there was some spell that neither of them wanted to break. They sat beside each other on the couch without touching, and ate dinner sitting across the table from each other in silence. When they climbed into bed, Chris looked across the mattress at Zach and said “I’m sorry” before he turned away.

But when he awoke in the middle of the night to find Zach holding him, he turned around in his arms and pressed kisses to Zach’s lips. And he didn’t stop, not even when he knew Zach was awake, when he could feel him kissing back, and it just felt so good. What were two years, Chris thought, when there was this? Maybe he didn’t need to remember.

**

Chris pushed the chair back from the desk with a muttered curse, glaring at the screen where he’d just entered the search term “Why can’t I fucking remember anything?” Google had helpfully supplied a handful of websites detailing the dangers of LSD and a number of links to what looked like angsty teenage fanfiction. It was fair to say that he was getting a little frustrated.

Still, he had come across a few crackpot theories that he figured were worth at least looking into, like the one that attributed basically every unexplained medical phenomenon to the chicken pox vaccine. Chris glanced around the office and wondered where he might have kept his medical records. A file cabinet against the wall looked promising, and he walked over to it, rolling his eyes as iTunes shuffled from a depressing indie song that had suited his mood to something annoyingly upbeat and peppy. He yanked open a drawer to find a carefully organized filing system, the manila folders labeled neatly in Zach’s handwriting. Movies they’d been in, scripts they’d been offered – “ _Marmaduke 2_ , you’re fucking kidding me,” he mumbled to himself. Files for various places they’d traveled stuffed with brochures and hotel receipts. Appliance manuals, investments, bank statements, boring boring boring…. Chris grinned as he opened the next drawer and spotted a file labeled “Notable Fan Letters (Heroes)” – oh, this was going to be hilarious. He frowned as the music changed again, this time to something older, like it should be crackling from a dusty record player. A few bars in, he recognized the song – remembered singing along to the nonsense lyrics with his sister in the back of their parents’ car, “Ooh, ee, ooh ah ah, ting tang, walla walla bing bang,” he sang along by memory. He was pulling another file out (Fan Letters – Princess Diaries 3) when the lyrics to the rest of the song sunk in – _I told the witch doctor I was in love with you…and then the witch doctor he told me what to do-_ Chris felt his heart stutter in his chest and he dropped the file, fan letters written on pink and purple stationery spilling across the floor. His hands shook as he slammed the drawer shut and opened the previous one, and he rifled through the files, not fully conscious of what he was looking for until he found the folder labeled **Vancouver**.

He felt lightheaded, his breathing coming in rapid pants, and he clutched the file tightly for a minute before he could bring himself to open it. This was crazy, he wouldn’t find anything, he was sure of it – he opened the file. Maps, flight confirmations, brochures for the Maritime Museum, art galleries, Harmony Spiritual Retreat-. Chris pulled that one out and set the rest of the file down absently. The inside of the brochure detailed the various workshops available, yoga, nature walks, that sort of thing. It wasn’t until he flipped to the back of the pamphlet that his breath caught in his throat, bright spots dancing before his eyes as he tried to process what he was seeing. There, circled and underlined and surrounded by Zach’s characteristic exclamation points, was a description for “a product designed to open the minds of others to your true spirit, freeing you to share the love that you desire without fear of rejection.”

“No,” Chris breathed. “No, no, no.” Not Zach. Not like this. He shook his head, wanting to be in denial, to say that Zach would never have _actually_ … But he knew Zach – knew how ardently he pursued his goals, knew he could manipulate when he wanted to – wasn’t that how he’d gotten the role of Spock, after all, dropping hints in interviews before auditions were even announced. And whereas others might view such a product as some sort of con for the overly gullible, Zach _would_ believe in it, just like he believed in feng shui and dog yoga and fucking Mercury in retrograde.

Chris dropped into the chair, his face in his hands, mind swimming. He wanted to forget he’d ever seen that brochure. He wanted to talk to Zach, to make him swear it wasn’t true. Or to make him admit that it was.

Through the dizzy haze of heartbreaking realization seeping through him, he heard the front door open, Zach’s voice calling “Chris! You home?” Chris’s head shot up at the sound, his heart pounding. He waited, holding his breath, hoping against hope that Zach wouldn’t think to come up here, that Zach wouldn’t expect him to still be in the house.

He heard a cabinet door open and close in the kitchen, the scrape of a chair. Okay. Chris slid silently from the chair, kneeling to pick up the papers strewn across the floor. He shoved them into their files, not even trying to keep them in order, and shut the drawer quietly, then he opened the office door and stepped into the hall. A low murmur traveled up from the kitchen, and Chris wondered for a minute if Zach had brought someone home with him before he realized that he must be on the phone. He descended a few steps, listening, curious. The scrape of the chair again…the sound of footsteps…and Chris backed into the shadows of the stairwell. But the footsteps got quieter and Zach’s voice got a little louder, and Chris eased his way to the bottom of the stairs. He caught a glimpse of Zach through the doorway of the kitchen – he was pacing, pressing the phone to his ear, alternating between running a hand through his hair and gesturing angrily. Chris ducked back out of sight and listened.

“It was only supposed to be a month, but it went over…five, almost six weeks, I guess….Yeah, I remember what you said, but I didn’t think… okay, I get it, I fucked up, but listen, I need you to fix this now. I don’t care what it takes, money, whatever you need.” Silence as Zach listened to someone on the other end of the line and then a burst of anger, and Chris felt the vibration through the floor as Zach actually stomped his foot. “Don’t – DON’T fucking tell me that! I NEED this, I need him, so don’t fucking TELL me that you have nothing!” Chris flinched with every word that Zach emphasized, and bile rose to the back of his throat as a sickening understanding came over him, which Zach confirmed as he hissed into the phone, “Don’t lie to me and tell me that you don’t have some fucking herbal hippie shit that will fix this, because I know you do!”

He heard Zach sucking in deep breaths, trying to compose himself, and when he spoke again his words were icy calm. “Listen to me, _Wolf_ \- this cannot be the end – there has be to something-“ he was losing it again, his voice cracking, “I can’t lose him, okay? He is my _life_ and if he leaves me I will go crazy, I will go insane, do you hear me, I don’t know how to live without him, so fucking fix this.” The threat was drowned in a sob, then Zach slapped his hand against the wall at whatever was said. “No, you WON’T call me in a week, you’ll call me TOMORROW, do you hear me? Do you HEAR ME?” Whoever it was, Wolf, or whoever, must not have heard, because Zach looked at the phone in disgust and slammed it onto the table as Chris stepped into the room.

Zach looked up at him, his eyes wide and shiny and a little crazed, and Chris could see him fight to control his expression, could see every twitch of muscle like it was in slow motion. Zach gestured toward the phone and shook his head. “Fucking cable company,” he said, and the thing was, Chris would have believed him, because Zach was _that good_. Chris wondered if he was that good too, or if everything he was feeling was written across his face, fear and disgust and devastating anger crashing through him, tinged with the backbeat of a breaking heart. Zach watched him, and he didn’t know where to begin, with screaming or crying or a fist to Zach’s chest so he could feel it too, but instead he just swallowed and said, “I heard you on the phone.”

“What?”

“I heard what you said to…who the fuck is Wolf?”

“It’s not what you think,” Zach said quickly.

“I know what you did, Zach.”

“What, Chris, what did I do?” Anger bled into his voice.

“You…you fucking love potion number nine-d me, Zach!”

Chris caught a glimpse of fear before Zach steeled his expression. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Chris felt hope flare in his chest, like maybe he’d been wrong, but he pushed it down. “Oh really? Let me see if I can help – a trip to Vancouver, a spiritual retreat,” he sneered, making air quotes with his fingers. He was playing a lawyer now, rattling off the evidence of his case with a confidence he didn’t feel. “A little chat with your buddy Wolf – ‘hey man, don’t suppose you have anything that would ‘open the minds of others to my true spirit, freeing me to share the love that I desire without fear of rejection’?” Air quotes again, and he was surprising himself – apparently, he’d memorized his lines.

Zach’s jaw dropped and Chris felt his stomach plummeting along with it. “I…how did you…?”

Chris wanted to grab him, to shake him and scream at him and tell him to stop, tell him not to admit to it, not to let the confession cross his lips, but it was too late, the tears were already streaming down his cheeks and his voice broke as he said Zach’s name.

“Chris, I …I don’t know what to say, I am so sorry, I never…”

“Never what?” Chris said. “Never thought I would find out? Never meant for this to happen? What was it, Zach, something you slipped in my coffee? Some incantation that you murmured while waving incense over my sleeping form?”

Zach swallowed and whispered, “Coffee.”

Chris barked out a laugh. “Oh my god. This would be funny if it wasn’t so…so fucking sick, Zach.”

“Chris, listen to me,” Zach said, pleading, and Chris shook his head.

“What are you going to say to me, Zach?” His voice was low and serious. “What could you possibly ever say to me now that I know?”

Zach’s eyes were wild with fear. Chris could see that he was drowning in it, struggling, but no acting classes could help him now. “I…I just…” his voice was shaking as he fought for words. “I just want to make things right.”

“You want to make things right, Zach? Give me back the last two years of my life. Give me back…fuck, you’re an idiot. You’re so _stupid_ , Zach,” Chris said, clenching his fists, seesawing manically between anger and tears. “You could have had those years, Zach. _I_ could have had them.”

“Chris!” Zach said, desperate now, control slipping, everything slipping from his grasp. “God, you have to believe me, it was only because…” his voice faltered, “it was only because I loved you.”

“You took my LIFE from me, Zach! You took away my choices. And the sick thing is, I would have CHOSEN you!”

“I didn’t know…”

“So stupid, Zach,” Chris said, shaking his head, squinting at Zach. “Didn’t you see the way I looked at you? All you had to do was ask.”

“I was scared. I was a coward. I didn’t know what to do, I just wanted you to love me! And, fuck, shit, Chris, when you did…when you did love me, it was the most amazing thing I’d ever experienced, it was everything. _You_ …”

Chris’s face was a mask of anger and he shook his head. “It was _fake_ Zach, don’t you get it? I didn’t know what I felt! And now, I’ll never fucking know. I’ll never know what it was like…what it was like to love you. To…to have you love me back.”

“I _do_ love you, Chris,” Zach said, stepping forward.

“Don’t touch me,” Chris hissed. “Don’t you fucking touch me.” He turned away from Zach and made it into the hallway before he collapsed. There was nothing left, nothing left to hold him up, and it was all he could do to make it to the bathroom before he lost it, his insides twisted and torn apart.

**

He wasn’t sure how long he lay on the floor of the bathroom, weak and shaking, damp with cold sweat and hot tears. He was dimly aware of a strong arm wrapping around him, pulling him up from the cold floor to wipe a damp cloth across his forehead. He struggled when Zach led him to the bed – he wanted to leave, he knew that much, objectively, but when Zach pulled the warm blanket over his shoulders and slid in beside him, he forgot why. The soft breath of apology in his ear was the last thing he remembered before he drifted off to sleep.

Chris awoke with a start in the middle of the night. Zach’s arm around his chest felt heavy and constraining, and when he remembered why it was all he could do not to throw himself out of the bed and run for his life. He took a deep breath, then another – and everything in him still screamed for him to run. But he didn’t want to wake Zach, and so he moved slowly, inched his way out from under Zach’s arm and slipped quietly from the bed. He fumbled for his phone on the nightstand, but it wasn’t where he remembered leaving it. Neither were his car keys or his wallet, but he didn’t even want to take the time to look, and he stumbled out into the cool night with nothing but the clothes on his back.

The cab dropped him off at Zoe’s, and she answered the door, groggy with sleep and confusion, but still beautiful as she paid the cabbie and ushered Chris inside. Chris cried in her embrace and told her everything, and he felt her arms tighten protectively around him as he talked, felt her shudder as she took in the implications of what Zach had done. She stroked his hair and murmured words of comfort in his ear, chief among them, “I believe you.”

**

When Chris woke up on her couch the next morning, Zoe handed him a fresh cup of coffee and the lease to a new apartment, and when she knew Zach was at yoga, she drove them back to the house to help him pack. Chris wasn’t sure the situation was quite that dire – it wasn’t like Zach was going to _hurt_ him – but as he sipped his coffee, he knew that he sure as hell wasn’t ready to see him again.

And he would have gotten out of there in time, too, if he hadn’t spent so much time sorting out his clothes (Jesus, how much plaid could two people own? He assumed anything that didn’t cause immediate blindness was his and left the rest for Zach. And he never did find his brown shoes.) Then there was a mild destructive episode, during which the coffee pot ended up shattered on the kitchen floor, and Chris just barely managed to stop himself from going apeshit on the rest of the appliances.

Zoe had packed her car full and pulled away, and Chris was carrying one last box down the stairs when Zach came in the front door. They stared at each other for a long moment.

“Chris...” Zach started, sounding broken.

Chris shook his head. “I have nothing to say to you, Zach.”

Zach looked away, blinking back tears, and crossed his arms tight against his chest. “I understand why you have to leave,” he started, his voice quiet.

“Oh yeah?” Chris responded, raising his eyebrows. “Did you figure it out for yourself, or did your spirit animal tell you in a dream?”

Zach winced a little at Chris’s tone. “Look, do you need anything? A place to stay, money…?”

“I need you to get out of my way,” Chris said, pushing past Zach to move toward the door.

“What are you going to do?” Zach asked, raising his voice a little.

Chris turned toward him with a look of disbelief. “I’m going to live my life. _My_ life, Zach, not the life that you forced on me. Don’t be surprised if you don’t recognize it.”

“I just…I was wondering if you think, maybe, in a little while, we could, like…start over?”

Chris laughed, and it sounded harsh even to his ears. “How can we start over, Zach? You’ve already lived this, you already know how it goes! You know what I like in _bed_ …Jesus, Zach, _I_ don’t even know what I like in bed, not with guys, not with you.”

Zach looked stricken. “Maybe I can go back to Wolf – let me ask him if he has something …something to help you remember.”

Chris looked at him incredulously. “Are you insane? You really think I’d let you go BACK to that...that _witch doctor_? You think my mind hasn’t been fucked with enough yet? Jesus, Zach, I heard you on the phone yesterday, I _know_ what you want from _Wolf_.”

“That’s not true!” Zach protested. “Chris, I swear, I wouldn’t…” His eyes flicked down toward the box Chris was holding, and a shadow crossed his face as he trailed off.

Chris followed his gaze to the Captain Kirk teddy bear resting on top of the pile. “What?”

Zach swallowed. “Just…you shouldn’t take that. I mean, it’s mine. You gave it to me.”

Chris’s eyes darkened. “Oh really? Are we going to talk about what’s yours and what’s mine now? Do you want to accuse me of _taking_ something of yours, you hypocritical little bitch?” He felt a twisted satisfaction at the hurt in Zach’s eyes. “Take your fucking bear, Zach. That’s all you’ve got left. Something to remember me by,” he sneered, and turned away before looking at Zach’s face made him sick.

He set the box on top of the car and reached into his pocket for his keys when he remembered that he hadn’t left the house with them the night before. The last thing that he wanted was to have to ask Zach for something, and he smacked the car in frustration. He hadn’t realized Zach was moving toward him until he noticed a shadow falling across the ground at his feet.

“These are yours,” Zach muttered, squinting past him. “I’m sorry.” He handed Chris his keys, along with the wallet and phone that he hadn’t been able to find. A new surge of anger pulsed through him and he glared at Zach as he took them without a word. He unlocked the car, threw the box on the passenger seat, and climbed inside. Zach gripped the door, holding it open.

“Let go, Zach.”

“You said you fell in love with me,” Zach said, his eyes pleading. “You said it was the last thing you remembered.”

“Yeah, well.” Chris yanked the door from Zach’s grasp, and just before he slammed it shut he added, “I wish I could forget that, too.”


	2. Chapter 2

The first read-through was a disaster. At the end of the day, JJ demanded that Chris and Zach stay behind, and he pulled Chris into his office first. 

Chris sat on the couch, watching miserably as JJ paced and ran his hands through his hair. Finally, he stopped and looked at Chris. “Chris…”

“Look, JJ, I’m sorry. I…you know, Zach and I are having problems…”

“Yeah, no shit! I fucking knew that you two getting together was a bad idea.”

Chris raised an eyebrow. “You did?”

JJ looked at him in exasperation for a long moment, then he shook his head. “No. No, I didn’t, I thought it was perfect. It made so much sense. There’s chemistry, and then there’s chemistry, and you two could have fucking melted movie screens with yours. And people warned me that this could happen, but I just…I didn’t believe it. Not with you two.” His voice softened. “What the hell happened, Chris?”

Chris clenched and unclenched his jaw. As tempting as it was to tell the truth, to expose Zach for who he really was – a manipulative, needy, selfish bastard – he’d sworn to himself that he wouldn’t do that. Only Zoe knew, and it would stop there. To everyone else, they were just a failed relationship. Spectacularly, irreparably failed, but for the sake of the movie, it was crucial to maintain that façade. And even more crucial was to let JJ know that they could do their jobs despite it all.

“I can’t…I don’t know, JJ. I just know that it’s over, and we’re moving on, and _we can do this_ , JJ, I swear to you.” He put up a hand to stop JJ from interrupting. “Today was terrible, I know. I’m sorry. But we’re actors and we’ll figure it out. This is what we do.” Some of us are better at acting than others, he wanted to say. You have no fucking clue how good an actor you have on your hands in Zach, he wanted to tell him.

JJ shook his head. “Get your act together, Pine, you and Zach both. I need you here and I need you focused and I need you to act your fucking asses off if that’s what it takes.” He gave Chris a long, scrutinizing stare before turning away from him to shuffle through some papers on his desk. “Now send Zach in, so I can tell him the same thing.”

Chris paused on his way out the door, looking back at JJ with as confident an expression as he could muster. “We won’t let you down,” he said, and he prayed that he was right.

**

Chris was right, and although he and Zach could barely exchange an unscripted sentence, no one could fault their work on-set. It helped that the script writers seemed to have had some kind of premonition - for much of the movie, the crew of the Enterprise was split apart, Kirk and an away team abandoned the surface of a planet when a hostile species turned Spock and the rest of the Enterprise against him. Kirk’s leg was broken, they were starving, and the script called for him to look “pale and haggard.” Chris was doing the makeup team’s work for them – the energy it took just to keep that trademark smirk on his face left him too exhausted to do much more than fall into bed at the end of every day. 

Like the crew, the cast was torn apart - what had once been the bright center of their universe, holding them together, was now cracked and sullen and pushing them away. Zach retreated into himself, into character, and when they noticed that even Zoe was avoiding him, everyone else decided to stay out of his way. Karl and John goofed around on-set, trying to keep people’s spirits up, but their efforts were drops of good cheer in an ocean of palpable angst. And so they plodded along, and JJ mused that if the viewers could see them behind the scenes, they’d all win Oscars for sure. 

Not every scene was difficult. Chris and Zach aced their big fight scene on the first take, but there was no gloating celebration to follow, and JJ looked pained instead of proud. And Chris felt a growing dread in the pit of his stomach as they approached the filming of their climactic scene, marked in big block letters on the schedule – KIRK/SPOCK REUNION.

**

But when the reunion scene fell apart, it had nothing to do with their acting – or interacting - abilities. The script called for a mind-meld between Kirk and Spock. They’d rehearsed it over and over, and JJ was frustrated because he could see that they were both holding back, neither wanting to commit to throwing the full range of emotion into the scene when it wasn’t going to count. Finally, JJ’d said fuck it, and let them wait until the cameras were rolling. 

“Stop holding back on me, guys,” was all the direction he’d given them. “Put everything into this one. Make it count.”

And no one could say they hadn’t listened. Zach lifted a hand to Chris’s face, and his expression was everything that JJ wanted to see. There was the emotion, just below the surface, there was Spock holding it back. Zach opened his eyes and met Kirk’s pleading gaze, pressed his spread fingers slightly against Chris’s skin -

Chris felt something like a bolt of lightning in his skull, a screeching, all-encompassing pain that drove him to his knees. He clutched his head, writhing in agony on the floor, and an image flashed through his mind, a scene that he saw clearly through the blinding haze of pain. 

He was in the kitchen at Zach’s house, humming to himself as he stood in front of the stove, waiting to flip a pancake. Then Zach was standing behind him, wrapping his arms around Chris’s waist and kissing him on the cheek and saying “I love waking up with you, baby,” and Chris turned around into his arms and murmured that the pancakes would burn, and Zach had whispered “Let them burn.” 

The scene – no, the _memory_ – faded to black, the pain subsiding as he pushed himself to his knees, panting. He was in shadow, could feel the cast gathered around, looking down at him, could imagine the concern etched on their faces, but his eyes shot straight to Zach’s. Chris felt rage flowing through him as he glared at Zach, but his words came out quietly, an accusation. “What the fuck did you do to me?”

Zach gaped, his mouth opening and closing. “I…nothing, Chris, I haven’t done anything.”

Chris leapt from his kneeling position and threw himself at Zach, yelling this time. “What did you do to me?!” he bellowed, his arm colliding with Zach’s chest, pressing him back against the set wall. He pinned him there, holding him, searching his eyes for a revelation of guilt and finding nothing but honest confusion. “I…I remembered something. I remembered….us. I…fuck, Zach,” he said and then he was leaning on his arm against Zach’s chest and he was sobbing, tears of anger mixing with tears of pain for what he had missed, for seeing what he had missed and anger at himself for _liking_ it and for wanting _more_.

No sooner had the thought crossed his mind than the skull-splitting pain was back, worse than before, and he would have fallen to the ground again if Zach’s strong arms hadn’t wrapped around him. Zach held him up as Chris pressed his hands to the sides of his head, crying out as another image – another memory – flashed through his mind, and oh god, he knew this one, recognized Zach’s white suit and the ring that Zach was sliding onto his finger. And because it was a memory, he could only go along for the ride, waiting to find out what he remembered. Had he looked into Zach’s eyes, and if he had, what had he seen there? What had he felt when he and Zach kissed, up there in front of all their friends? He remembered the taste of champagne and the color of the flowers in the centerpieces and Zoe’s smile and then, finally, he remembered Zach pulling him onto the veranda, away from the crowd. In the memory, Zach pulled him close and took his face in his hands and kissed him, over and over, on his lips and his cheeks and his temple and had wrapped his arms around him and said, “Chris, I’m so happy. I’m so happy.” And there it was, a waver in Zach’s voice that spoke volumes, that told him that this wasn’t how Zach had wanted it either, that he was pushing away doubts about what he’d done. It was comforting and infuriating at the same time, and he curled his fists, almost wishing he’d never seen.

It took Chris a moment to realize that the pain was gone, that he was out of the memory, because it still smelled like Zach and he still felt Zach’s strong arms around him, heard him murmuring in his ear, but now he was saying “It’s okay, Chris, you’re okay.” Chris took a deep breath and pushed himself up off of Zach’s chest and took a few steps back, and then he was on the floor again and the pain was back and he couldn’t take it anymore. He looked up at Zach from the floor, his vision blurred by pain and tears and he mustered all of his strength to grip Zach’s ankle and cry out, “Make it stop, Zach, Jesus, ow….fucking make it stop!” He could tell that Zach was confused, didn’t know what he could do to stop Chris’s pain, so he squeezed his ankle harder and ground out, “CALL HIM.”

Chris heard JJ’s voice in the background telling Zach to go do whatever he needed to do. He closed his eyes and breathed deep breaths and prayed that the darkness behind his eyelids wouldn’t be replaced by more memories, blinding in their bright intensity. 

He was dimly aware of movement around him, of being lifted onto a stretcher, of resisting the urge to laugh maniacally when the paramedics asked him if he knew what day it was. He felt Zoe by his side, her warm palm resting gently on his arm as she told him that they were taking him to the hospital, that everything was going to be okay, and he let the exhaustion carry him under.

He opened his eyes with a start, his heart pounding in his chest, but the brightness was only from the lights of his hospital room, and Zoe was still there, looking down at him, concerned. He blinked and swallowed dryly. 

“Hey.”

“Hey,” she said softly, picking up a glass of water from the tray beside him and holding the straw to his lips. He drank gratefully, slowly becoming aware of the room around him, of the IV in his wrist and the sweat-damp hair clinging to his forehead.

“What happened?” he croaked.

“They’re not sure. Migraines, maybe. The doctor said it’s not a stroke or an aneurysm or anything serious like that. You’re going to be okay.”

Chris gave an experimental nod, relieved that only a dull ache lingered in his skull. 

Zoe leaned over him. “Zach’s here,” she said, her voice cautious. “I can tell him to leave, if you want.”

Chris shook his head. “I need…I want to talk to him. It’s okay. Let him in.”

Zoe nodded and stepped out of the room, and a moment later, Zach stepped inside. He was out of costume, his hair gelled into messy submission. Chris gestured weakly at the chair beside his bed, and Zach sat, resting his elbows on his knees. Chris watched him, waiting. 

“I called Wolf. Left a message.”

Chris rolled his eyes. “Wonderful.”

“Look, Chris, there’s something I have to tell you,” Zach said, looking at his fingernails. Chris raised an eyebrow and waited. He couldn’t even begin to guess what Zach had to say. 

“You said…you said you were remembering…today. That’s what was happening, you were remembering things about…us?”

Chris nodded once. He didn’t contribute anything, still waiting to see where Zach was going with this. “The thing is…I’ve been…I’ve been forgetting.” Zach looked up finally, meeting Chris’s gaze. Zach took a breath and continued. “I’ve been trying to remember and it’s….it’s fading. Fast, so fast, not like normal memory fading over time, but like…blurred around the edges, and I’m losing, like, whole portions of time.” Zach was twisting his hands together now, frustrated. Chris shook his head slightly, not understanding. “We took this trip to Hawaii together, I know we did. I have pictures of us on the beach, and postcards that say Hawaii, and a fucking, heh, a fucking painting of two turtles that says ‘Zach and Chris forever.’” Chris raised both eyebrows at that. “But the thing is, I can’t remember anything about it. I can’t remember what hotel we stayed at or what we ate or how the water felt. I can’t even fucking remember the sex!” Chris winced. “I’m sorry,” Zach said, knowing, “but with you, Chris, I always remembered the sex.”

Chris stared at Zach, but he seemed to be finished, waiting for Chris to say something. Say what? 

“What do you want me to say, Zach?” Chris asked, furrowing his brow. “I’m sorry? Karma’s a bitch? I’ll look forward to the next episode of brain-splitting pain so I can fill you in? What?”

Zach shook his head. “Just… I don’t know. Maybe it’s related. Maybe this is how it works. Maybe you’ll remember everything!”

“Maybe I don’t want to.”

Zach opened and closed his mouth and his eyes went helpless. “God, Chris, I never meant for this to happen. I never meant to hurt you like this, I never would have…” He took a deep breath. “Look, I know I don’t deserve a place in your life anymore, but if there’s anything I can do, Chris, please, just – just ask, okay? Anything.”

Chris had been biting his lip, staring into the distance as he listened to Zach, but now he turned, tilted his chin toward the bedside table. 

“What?”

“Water.”

“You…you want me to?...Right, okay, sure,” Zach said, scrambling to grab the cup. He angled the straw toward Chris’s lips and his eyes lingered as Chris took a long sip. Chris felt the tips of Zach’s fingers brush against his hair, and Zach’s eyes were soft and helpless when they met his wary gaze. “I still love you.”

Chris let the straw slide from his mouth as he turned his head away. “Goodbye, Zach.”

He heard Zach set the cup back down, heard the scrape of the chair as Zach pushed it away from the bed. He waited until he heard the door shut before he closed his eyes.

**

Migraines, the doctors told him, and Chris dutifully accepted their diagnosis and their useless pills. He was back on-set two days later, offering bland reassurances to anyone who asked how he was feeling, and throwing himself back into Kirk. They were filming on the Enterprise now, where the lights made him look washed out, and the makeup team had to work overtime to smooth the bags under his eyes. Between scenes, he made his way to his trailer and let himself down onto the bed with a sigh of relief. He had just closed his eyes when he heard a knock on the door. 

“What?” He meant to yell it, but it came out as more of a tired mumble. 

He heard footsteps along the side of his trailer, and Zach’s voice came in through the small window high above his bed. He could picture Zach leaning against the side, tilting his head up so Chris could hear him through the screen. 

“Chris? You okay?” Zach asked.

“Skip to the point,” Chris said, too tired to be anything but tired.

He heard Zach scuff his shoes against the pavement. “I talked to Wolf.”

“And?”

“Chris, can I come in?”

Chris rolled onto his side away from the window. His head was pounding.

“Fine, okay, I’ll just tell you from here. He…doesn’t know what’s going on, okay? He’s never heard of anything like this, he’s not sure how it works, the…chemistry.”

Chris huffed an ironic laugh that Zach couldn’t hear.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t help, I tried, I…I’m sorry.”

Zach went quiet, but Chris could almost sense that he was still out there. When he spoke, his voice was softer, muffled like he was leaning his forehead against the trailer wall.

“Have you had any other…episodes?”

Chris squeezed his eyes shut as he thought back to that morning in his bathroom, flicking on the lights and the pain, the overwhelming pain as he remembered…

A palm, warm and dry over his eyes, Zach’s hand, he would know it anywhere. Another hand on his shoulder, and he remembered relaxing into it, smiling. He felt comforted, loved, calm under Zach’s touch, and a thrum of anticipation was buzzing through him. 

Zach’s voice was low and playful in his ear. “Ready?”

Chris nodded, and opened his eyes as Zach pulled his hand away to reveal a shelf of leather-bound classics. He remembered gasping, remembered surprise and joy, remembered thinking “Zach knows me so well,” and he turned and threw himself into Zach’s arms. 

“Merry Christmas, baby,” Zach whispered in his ear, tightening his arms around Chris. Tightening and tightening until Chris couldn’t breathe and he found himself slumped against the bathroom counter, sucking air into his lungs. His eyes were bloodshot in the mirror, his reflection the picture of devastation, and he stumbled in his haste to turn off the lights. 

In the dim light of his trailer, he realized that he’d never answered Zach. 

“Chris.” Zach’s voice was quiet. Chris imagined him pressing that broad, warm palm against the side of the trailer. “Are you okay?” 

Chris twisted around as if he could see Zach through the wall. He swallowed, and the rough edge in his voice echoed his words. “Everything hurts.”

**

Chris stared at the ground as he walked across the lot with slow, even steps. He’d had three headaches today – headaches, he called them, when what they really felt like was an ice pick jamming into his brain, each one accompanied by happy fucking memories of a life like a movie screen in his mind. So he walked carefully and kept his head down and braced himself for the next one. Chris opened the door to his trailer and stepped inside, shut the door and locked it like he hadn’t even noticed Zach sitting on the steps. He crossed the trailer and sat down on the bed, resting his back against the wall, waiting. He heard the crunch of Zach’s footsteps, and for a minute he thought they were fading, like Zach was walking away from the trailer, and he didn’t want to think about why his chest clenched when he thought that. But then the footsteps turned, and he heard Zach come to a stop beneath the window.

“Chris?”

“Yeah.”

He pictured Zach crossing his arms, staring at the wall of the trailer as it radiated heat from the Southern California sun. “Headaches bad today?”

“Yeah.”

“Memories?”

Memories. The memory of a morning trip to Lamill had been so clear. It could have been one of hundreds, and it was clear that it was, the way Zach knew just what to order for him, the way Zach handed him the right section of the Times. They had a table that was theirs, in the corner, and somehow Chris knew that on the rare mornings they ended up at Intelligentsia, it was only because their table was taken. That morning, the one he’d remembered – why that morning? He remembered frustration, anger, running his hand through his hair – a fight? No – 24 Across, god, they’d spent forever trying to figure that one out, and Chris had gotten so mad, and Zach had smiled and pulled the pen from his hand and written “love u to the stars” across the row, the letters all upside down and crooked and suddenly Chris didn’t give a shit what the right word was anymore.

Chris swallowed. The memories. “Could have been worse,” he finally answered, careful to keep his voice toneless. “There was a rather traumatizing one about your hair.”

He heard Zach chuckle, then a moment later – “Do you remember what you said to me when I got that hair cut?”

Chris shook his head, then remembered Zach couldn’t see him. “No.”

“You were a little freaked out, I think, and you were like, ‘Ahh! Tell them to put it back!’” He could hear the smile in Zach’s voice as he remembered. “It was pretty funny. Actually it, well, it kind of became an inside joke between us, ‘Ahh, put it back!’, like in that tone. We used to say that a lot.”

“Oh.”

“Well. I guess it doesn’t sound as funny, now.”

“Yeah.”

“But maybe you’ll remember, someday.”

“Maybe.”

**

Chris didn’t realize he’d been waiting, until he heard footsteps and felt the trailer sway slightly as Zach leaned heavily against the wall under his window, and he felt his shoulders relax.

“Zach?”

“Yeah. I, uh, just came by to tell you…JJ wants us on set at 6:30 tomorrow. Instead of 7:00. He said the light’s better or something.”

“Yeah. He told me.”

“Oh. Okay.”

“Hey, Zach.”

“Yeah?”

“I remembered something last night. The thing you told me. About your hair. The inside joke we had, you know? I remembered it. You were right, it actually was pretty funny.”

“The what?”

“You know. The inside joke? ‘Ahh, tell them to put it back!’ How we used to say that for the slightest reason. And everyone else would look at us like we were crazy.”

In the silence that followed, Chris turned to lie on his side, facing the wall of the trailer. He furrowed his brows. Why wasn’t Zach saying anything?

“Chris, I…I don’t remember. I don’t know what you’re talking about.” A hard thump against the trailer startled Chris, and he heard Zach mutter, “Dammit.”

Chris’s eyes widened in the darkness. He’d almost forgotten that Zach was forgetting as he remembered. Dammit.

“It’s no big deal, Zach. It wasn’t really that big of a deal.”

“It _is_ a big deal. I’m forgetting everything, I’m forgetting….” His voice trembled as he trailed off, and Chris heard him take a ragged breath. 

Chris reached out to touch his fingertips gently against the trailer wall. “Does it hurt?” he asked softly. “When you forget?”

“No.” Chris pulled his hand away at the answer, rolled over on to his back to stare at the ceiling before Zach continued. “I get dizzy…weak…cold sweat, that sort of thing. It doesn’t hurt like it hurts you to remember.” 

“Oh.”

In the silence that followed, Chris imagined he almost see Zach through the trailer wall, resting his forehead against the warm metal just inches away.

“Chris?” Zach’s voice broke the silence.

“What?”

“You remember Sydney?”

Chris smiled in the darkness. “Of course. Well, most of it,” he amended. “The premiere, the endless interviews… that night, when we had to physically restrain Karl from throwing his shoe at a group of rugby fans. The tequila. I don’t really remember much after the tequila.”

Zach’s voice came back to him quietly. “I can only remember the premiere.”

Chris frowned and pushed himself up in his elbows, staring at the window screen as though he were looking at Zach. “What do you mean?”

“I mean…I don’t remember the rest.”

“But…that was before…”

“I know.”

“Why do you think-“

“I don’t _know_ , okay?” Zach said, raising his voice a little, his frustration evident. “I just know that I’m forgetting…other things now. God, what if I forget everything, what if I lose every memory of…”

He heard Zach suck in a quavering breath, and so quietly he would have missed it if he hadn’t had all of his attention focused on that voice, “I miss you.”

Chris gave in, reached a hand out and pressed his palm to the trailer wall. He left it there until he heard the sound of Zach’s footsteps moving away, mingling with the thumps of his traitorous heart.

**

Hours that he would have spent pranking Karl or playing chess with Anton were now spent lying in his trailer, the lights out, a water bottle clutched to his chest, waiting for the pain in his head to start. Waiting for the pain and waiting, maybe, for those footsteps outside his trailer. 

Whether he was waiting or not, he hadn’t heard any footsteps in three days.

They were between takes, waiting for JJ to give John a few notes, standing close together on the bridge set. Chris ran a hand over the back of his neck and glanced at Zach out of the corner of his eye. 

“You, uh…you haven’t come by…”

Zach’s face was still, stoic - Spock. He nodded curtly. 

“You can. If you want. To talk. Like before.” He was hesitant, not sure what he was asking for, not sure if it was a good idea to ask at all. The Shatner impression was involuntary.

Zach cocked his head and narrowed his eyes slightly. “I would prefer not to hear about the memories anymore.”

Chris nodded his understanding. That made sense. But a second later he took a breath and squinted at Zach. “You’re the only one I can tell them to.”

Zach met his eyes, but didn’t have time to respond before JJ called for quiet on set. “And, action!”

“Well, Mr. Spock,” Chris said, crossing his arms, “think we can get a do-over on that mission? This time _without_ any unwanted visitors?”

Zach raised a perfectly sculpted Vulcan eyebrow. “While the concept of a ‘do-over’ implies time-travel capabilities that Starfleet does not currently possess, my response to the sentiment is favorable.”

Chris smirked and gave Zach a jolting slap on the shoulder. “I’ll take that as a resounding ‘indeed’.”

**

The piercing rays of the sunset had disappeared outside his window, and Chris was drifting in and out of sleep on the thin bed in his trailer. He didn’t hear the footsteps, didn’t hear anything until Zach’s quiet voice filtered in through the window.

“Chris? I’m here.”

Chris rubbed his eyes and struggled up onto an elbow. 

“You still in there?”

Chris sat up, his back to the trailer wall. He glanced up toward the window above him as he spoke. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m here.”

“Still want to talk?”

“Sure.” He fell quiet for a moment, a vague uneasiness settling over him as he realized that he wasn’t quite sure what they could talk about now, without crossing into sensitive territory. He just knew that he wanted to keep Zach there, to hear his voice, to feel his presence just out of reach. 

“You okay?” Zach said, after a minute. “Did you…remember something?”

“I thought you didn’t want to know.”

“You can tell me if you want to. If it helps.”

“Actually, I was wondering if you wanted to talk about our scene tomorrow. I had a couple ideas I wanted to bounce off of you.”

“Yeah?” He felt the trailer sway gently as Zach leaned against the wall, settling in. “I’d like to hear.”

**

“Okay, guys, you ready to do this?” JJ asked, rubbing his hands together.

Zach nodded, glancing at Chris who stood a few feet away. “Actually, Chris and I were talking yesterday, and we had a couple questions about the tone of the scene.”

JJ’s eyes widened and he looked back and forth between Chris and Zach, shocked. “That…that’s great. That’s wonderful! I mean, yes, of course. What did you want to know?”

**

One second Chris was leaning down to grab a yogurt out of his mini-fridge, and the next he was writhing on the floor of his trailer as his head split open in pain. He waited for the memory to come.

He was sitting across the table from Zach, at the corner table at Lamill, and they were looking down at a crossword puzzle between them – wait, hadn’t he had this memory before? He was frustrated about 16 Down, and he was pissed because Zach was clicking his pen incessantly instead of helping him figure out the answer.

“Come on, Zach. Oh! I think it starts with an M. Does that help?”

He stared at the puzzle, waiting for an answer to reveal itself, and he saw Zach’s hand holding the pen come down to start writing, and he started to say “wait-“ because it always made him so nervous when Zach filled in the answers in pen.

But Zach was writing, and Chris furrowed his brow in confusion, and the letters seemed to appear in slow motion as Zach wrote them, upside down and crooked so Chris could read them.

M  
A  
R  
R  
Y  
M  
E  
?

And he can’t tell what’s worse now, the pain in his head or the pain in his heart at the memory of looking up into Zach’s questioning gaze, a shy smile on his lips, and Chris remembered leaning forward and wrapping a hand around the back of Zach’s head and pulling him forward, coffee spilling across the table as he slammed their lips together for a kiss.

A knock on the trailer door pulled him out of it, and he dimly registered the voice of a production assistant calling his name. “Mr. Pine? Sorry to bother you, but you’re due on set? Mr. Pine?”

The memory was gone now, replaced by brain-shattering pain, and his body was shaking and he could hear himself crying out, but he had no idea if he was saying words or screaming or if the sound was only inside his head.

Rapid footsteps on the steps of his trailer echoed the pounding in his head, and someone was wrenching the door open and dropping down beside him, pulling him close with strong arms and whispering soothingly into his ear. He gulped down air as a hand rubbed comforting circles across his back, and he curled into himself, pressing his face into soft fabric, his shivers subsiding when arms tightened around him. It felt familiar, he thought, like something he’d once known, like a memory, and he let it wrap around him as he drifted into darkness.

He came awake with a start and twisted away, away from the solid warmth that was supporting him. He was still on the floor, and he looked up to meet Zach’s eyes in the darkness. 

“What are you doing in here?” he hissed. 

Zach didn’t react, didn’t move from where he was kneeling on the floor. “Margie said you were calling my name,” he said quietly. “I…I didn’t know what to do.”

Chris rubbed a hand over his face. “How long have you been here?”

Zach glanced at the clock on the desk. “Forty-five minutes?”

Chris raised an eyebrow. “Jesus.”

Zach shrugged, wincing a little as he shifted out of his kneeling position and moved to sit with his back against the wall.

Chris watched him, couldn’t tear his eyes away, and when he did all he saw were crooked letters in blue pen.

“Zach?” His voice was a whisper, but Zach startled at the sound.

“Yeah?”

“Why did you ask me to marry you?”

Zach furrowed his brow. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, why did you have to ask? Didn’t you have me under some love spell? I mean, did my opinion of whether or not I _wanted_ to marry you really matter?” 

Zach let out a frustrated sound and tipped his head back, frowning. “God, Chris, it wasn’t like that. I wasn’t some kind of puppet-master, controlling your every move. You weren’t following me around all glassy-eyed and stupid like some kind of love-slave. I mean, Jesus, it felt _real_ , Chris. It was just us, just like always, except…”

“Except I loved you.”

Zach nodded. “Yeah. And sometimes I even…forgot why. Sometimes I forgot what I did…” he said, his voice trailing off as he looked away, blinking back tears.

Chris stood from the floor and looked down at Zach. “You can’t forget. If we’re ever….” He shook his head and picked up his bag from the bed. “You can’t forget that part, Zach. Don’t you fucking dare forget what you did.”

**

Chris woke up in the middle of the night screaming. He clutched his head as the pain shot through it, worse maybe than any of the other times it had happened, and he twisted on the bed, sweating, tangled in the blankets, until he fell with a thump onto the floor. He lay on his back with his eyes squeezed shut as memory upon memory crashed over him like waves. When he came to, the pain was gone and he could feel tears streaming down his face. He climbed back up onto the bed and reached for his phone.

“Wha- Chris? What is it, is something wrong?” Zach’s voice was heavy with sleep.

“Zach,” Chris said, and then he was hit by a wave of tears, and clenched his teeth to keep from sobbing into the phone. 

“Hey ba- hey, Chris, it’s okay, tell me what’s going on.” He was awake now, his tone shifting from concerned to soothing.

“Zach, I remembered…I remember Hawaii.” 

Zach inhaled sharply. “Chris…”

“Come over.” 

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Please, Zach. I can’t keep doing this alone. It hurts so fucking much.” 

He could picture Zach running a hand through his hair as he considered it. He wondered if he should say something else, plead or beg, but then Zach said “Okay. I’ll be over in a few minutes,” and Chris collapsed back onto the bed in relief.

He wrapped himself in a blanket and padded to the door to let Zach in, then led the way back to the bedroom and dropped onto the mattress, exhausted. Zach lay down beside him awkwardly, not sure what was expected, not sure what he was being asked. Chris pulled the blanket over both of them, and curled into Zach’s chest, and he was shaking as Zach took him into his arms. “Is this what you want, Chris?” Zach whispered. 

Chris nodded against his chest. “Hold me tight.” Zach did. 

In the middle of the night, Chris awoke to the feeling of a gentle kiss against his hair. Keeping his eyes closed and his breathing even, he tipped his head back, and was rewarded by the feel of Zach’s lips pressing against his forehead. He moaned and stretched out along Zach’s side, pressing his erection into Zach’s thigh. He heard Zach gasp and felt him pull away, felt a hand on his cheek and his eyes were brought into line with Zach’s. 

“No, Chris.”

Chris moved against him insistently. “Please.”

“No.”

“You were kissing me.”

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that.”

“I want you.”

“You won’t in the morning.”

“Please,” Chris pleaded, moving his lips against Zach’s neck and over his jaw. He cupped a hand around the back of his head and whispered roughly in his ear. “You’ve taken so much from me, Zach. Please, let me have this.”

And they were both trembling as their lips came together, and Chris remembered now, how Zach pressed into his kisses, how their tongues slid together between the seal of their lips, and his heart gave a painful, aching thud before Zach pulled away with a breathless “Stop!”

“Why?!” Chris cried, wrestling to get closer, but Zach had a firm grip on his wrists and held him at bay. 

“Because…how do I know it’s really you?” Zach asked, and there was a desperate sound to his voice.

“Zach, what do you mean, it’s me, it’s Chris!”

“How do I know? How do I know it’s you this time and not…something I did to you? How do I know you’re not going to forget again?”

Chris twisted out of Zach’s grasp and pushed him onto his back, pinned him down with an arm across his chest and a leg over his thighs. “How can I prove it, Zach?” he asked, looking down into Zach’s eyes. “How can I prove that it’s me?”

“I don’t know.”

“Tell me….tell me something I would never do, before. Like, a sex thing.”

Zach laughed softly, helplessly in the darkness. “There was nothing you wouldn’t do, Chris, nothing. You loved me so much.” He sucked in a breath as he realized what he’d said. “I mean, it felt like you did. God, it felt so _real_.”

Chris could feel the truth of Zach’s words in his veins, in the crackling nerves along the surface of his skin, in the way his cock twitched and his mouth turned down at the edges with want. He would have done anything, anything Zach wanted, he would do it still, he knew, and he didn’t want to think about what that meant. 

He leaned down to press a hard kiss to Zach’s mouth, and Zach moaned and opened up to him for only a moment before he twisted his head away. 

“Zach!” The word was an anguished plea, and Chris pressed down harder on Zach’s chest as he ground his erection into his crotch, where he could feel the line of Zach’s rigid cock through the fabric of his yoga pants.

“I still think about you, Zach. I do, I swear, I can’t help it. Even when I hated you -” he felt Zach tense underneath him, and he rubbed himself harder against Zach’s dick – “even when everything was wrong and I wasn’t speaking to you, even then, I thought about…about you kissing me and touching me and…” He’d always felt sick afterwards, dirty, jerking off to the fantasy of Zach’s mouth on his cock, simultaneously hating him for what he’d done and wanting him as much as he had that night, the night he’d decided to tell him everything.

“Fuck, Zach, I’m sorry,” he panted, smearing wet kisses across Zach’s neck. “I can’t…I just...I need this, Zach, please-“ 

“Chris, don’t-“ Zach said, bringing his hand up between them to press against Chris’s chest. But Chris was reaching down to slide his pants and boxers off, freeing his cock, and by the time he wrapped a fist around both of them, slick with pre-come and sweat, Zach was only running light fingertips across his chest. 

Chris’s strokes were hard and quick and sweat dripped into his eyes as he leaned down to whisper roughly in Zach’s ear.

“Do you remember this Zach? I remember,” he panted. “How good it felt, how your face looked when you _ahh ahhhh fuck_ ” he cried, thrusting into his fist as he came. Zach reached up with both hands to pull Chris’s head down, slamming their lips together, and his hips bucked and stilled as his cock pulsed in Chris’s hand.

They kissed, slick chests sliding together, Zach’s hands still tangled in Chris’s hair. Chris brought a hand up to feel wetness on Zach’s cheeks and he knew that Zach didn’t remember.

“How do _I_ know, Zach?” he whispered when he’d caught his breath. “How can I trust that you haven’t done it again? How can I know that what I’m feeling is real?” Because he almost couldn’t believe that this deep, aching want could possibly be of this world, sprung from his insignificant heart alone. “How do I know it’s not just some kind of chemical reaction? How do I know you’re not fucking with my brain again, huh?”

“Because I told you to stop, Chris. I want you, but…I won’t let myself do this with you again. And that’s how you’ll know.”

Chris made a frustrated sound. “That’s not what I want. I want _this_.” He ran a finger through their mingled juices cooling on Zach’s stomach, and he heard Zach stifle a gasp. “I want this.” His hand drifted down, and he curved a palm over Zach’s hip, stroking gently with his thumb. “I just want to know that it’s real.” 

“I have an idea,” Zach breathed, pulling away, sliding out of reach and propping himself up on his elbows. 

Chris swallowed and made himself stay still. “What?”

“When I…got the stuff…Wolf told me the rules. And one of them was that I couldn’t leave you, that we couldn’t be apart, for longer than a few weeks, maybe four or five at the most. Or, something would happen, the effect would wear off, and… Well, he didn’t know. He didn’t know what would happen.”

“So that’s why…”

“Yeah. And that’s why you did _Princess Diaries 3_. That’s why I asked you to do it.”

Chris felt a hot flash of anger. “Fuck you for that, by the way.”

“I know. I’m sorry about that, I really am. It’s…one of my bigger regrets.”

“Oh yeah, I’m sure it’s right up there.”

“Anyway, listen. Filming’s almost over. When it is, I’ll leave.”

“Leave?”

“I’ve been thinking about going to New York anyway. Neal and Corey are there, and I was going to do it to get away from everything, and now…I’ll go away, for…six weeks. No, we’ll make it longer, just to be sure - two months. And then I’ll come back, and if everything’s the same, we’ll know. That it’s us, really us.”

“No mind fuckery.”

“No mind fuckery,” Zach confirmed.

“What if…” Chris swallowed, and he wasn’t sure why he felt his chest clenching with nerves. “What if something happens? What if you- what if one of us meets someone?”

“Then we’ll know. We’ll know that it’s not meant to be.”

“And until then? Until you leave?”

Zach leaned over to run a finger down Chris’s cheek. “Until then…” He leaned forward and pressed his lips to Chris’s, wrapped a hand around his head to hold him there for a long moment. “Until then…nothing. This is it.”

Chris looked away, blinking hard in the darkness. Why did it feel like he was losing Zach all over again? But Zach put a gentle hand on his shoulder and pulled him close, and he settled into his arms. 

He waited until his breathing was steady before he asked. “White suits, Quinto? Really?”

He could practically hear Zach processing the question, then a low chuckle rustled his hair. “How do you know it wasn’t your idea?”

“Yeah, right. Good try. No potion on earth has that kind of power, honey,” he said sassily.

Zach tightened his arm around Chris. “You looked good.”

“I can only assume you ignored my veto.”

“I gave you the blow job of your life in the dressing room.”

“That would also work.”

“Black seemed overly somber for a wedding. For us.”

Chris’s only response was to nuzzle closer, burying himself in the warmth of Zach’s embrace.

Sleep came far too soon.

**

Chris left his trailer for the last time, a black duffel slung over his shoulder and a crate of books balanced precariously on his hip. He walked out to the parking lot and prayed that Zach’s car wasn’t still there.

Zach’s car was still there. 

Chris threw his stuff in the trunk and stared at the Prius for a long time, his thoughts tumbling over themselves. 

For the last three weeks, his interactions with Zach had been limited to cordial nods and murmured scene notes between takes. Zach hadn’t come by his trailer, and Chris hadn’t asked him to, and there’d been no more late night phone calls and therefore no more temptation and no more anything, just like Zach had said. Chris pushed himself off the side of his car and headed back across the lot.

He stood in front of the door to Zach’s trailer, debating whether or not to knock. But Zach must have heard him or sensed him or something, because the door opened and dark brown eyes stared into his. 

“You alright?” Zach asked, looking concerned.

Chris felt his mouth twist into a pained expression and he shook his head. He had no idea what he was doing here, but apparently Zach did, since he was grabbing him by the front of his t-shirt and yanking him abruptly inside.

The door closed behind him and Chris felt a flash of pain in his head. This would be a _really_ bad time for a memory, but then he realized he’d just slammed his head against the door when Zach crushed their mouths together in a desperate attempt at a kiss. Chris pushed him back only enough to breathe, then he was chasing Zach’s lips with his own, thrusting his tongue into Zach’s mouth as he walked them backwards into the trailer. His fingers fumbled with Zach’s fly as he slipped off his shoes. They were naked by the time they reached the couch, and Chris pressed Zach onto it.

“Want you,” he panted. “I want to do everything with you, everything we’ve ever done together. I want _everything_.”

Zach’s eyes were wide and his laugh had a manic edge to it as he maneuvered onto his back, pulling Chris down on top of him and saying, “Take it.”

Then Chris’s mouth was on Zach’s cock, licking and sucking and tasting. He knew there was more – there was the sound Zach made when teeth scraped lightly across his chest, the ripple of muscles when he dipped a tongue into his belly button – he had finally remembered those, after imagining them for so long. But for now, he wanted this, he wanted to suck Zach into him, hot and hard, wanted to feel Zach’s pulse against the flat of his tongue, wanted to coat his fingers in the lube that Zach shoved into his hand and press them into Zach, too many at a time. He pulled his mouth away and looked up, fucking _willed_ Zach to look at him, to see him biting at the inside of his thigh and thrusting fingers into him, hoped Zach could see his blue eyes burning brightly through the red haze of pleasure and pain. Zach’s asshole clenched around his fingers, and Zach was breathing hard, his mouth open, hair falling into his eyes, but he _was_ looking, and Chris had a feeling he wouldn’t soon forget what he saw.

Chris slid his fingers out abruptly, avoiding Zach’s gaze as he slid a condom over his aching cock. Zach took a deep shuddering breath as Chris pushed inside. Chris groaned out loud at the sensation of Zach’s tight heat surrounding him, and it felt so much better than he remembered. His memories were cloudy, and even the best of them were suffused with an undercurrent of pain and betrayal, but this was clear and real and _fucking Christ_ it felt good. He gave himself up to it, pistoning his hips, whimpering at the sight of his cock sliding into Zach as he fucked him fast and hard. So fast and so hard that it couldn’t last and he felt his climax mounting, everything shutting down, disappearing, except the building pleasure in his groin and he dug his fingertips into Zach’s hip as he came with a shuddering cry.

Zach was looking at him with a confused expression, until Chris pushed a condom into his hand and whispered, “Fuck me.” Then he was on his back, Zach’s weight pinning him to the couch, and there was no finesse in the way Zach prepped him with careless fingers and even more careless kisses against his mouth, with the way Zach lay across him, pressing his forehead to Chris’s chest, barely holding himself up as he fucked frantically into Chris.

“Oh Chris, oh fuck,” he panted, then a garbled string of syllables as he thrust hard and spilled into Chris, going limp on top of him.

Chris let his fingers drift across the sweat-damp skin of his lower back as they slowly came down together. “So,” he murmured. “Now we have that.”

**

When Chris woke up, he was clutching a Captain Kirk teddy bear to his chest. Zach had given it to him as he left his trailer a few nights earlier. 

“Here, I think this is yours.”

Chris looked at it, then back up at Zach. “It’s yours, actually. I gave it to you.”

Zach frowned. “I don’t remember.”

“I gave you a card with it. It said-“ and here Zach joined him, “ _love you to the stars_.” Chris nodded. “You remember.”

Zach gave a frustrated shake of his head. “Just that phrase, I… Here. You take it. Please.” 

Chris took it gently from Zach’s hand. “I’ll hold onto it for you,” he’d said.

Chris rolled over in bed and checked the clock. 8:30. Zach would be at the airport already. He pulled out his phone. 

_Don’t forget me_ , he texted.

The response came back quickly. **Who is this again?**

His heart seized in his chest for a second before he realized that Zach was joking. It had been a while.

_Not funny._

**Sorry.**

_So. Two months._

**Two months.**

_I’ll be waiting. Safe travels._

**Catch you on the flip side.**

**

**Two Months Later**

Chris sat at their table in Lamill, chewing the shit out of his pen. The New York Times crossword lay untouched in front of him.

He heard the door open and glanced up, and his breath caught in his throat as Zach stepped inside. His eyes widened as he watched Zach look around, starting on the other side of the café. Of course. He didn’t remember this, didn’t remember their table or the crosswords or…Chris pushed the thought from his mind as he watched Zach’s eyes flick to each table. He felt his palms prickle with sweat as he waited for Zach’s gaze to land on him.

When their eyes met, Zach’s face lit up in a smile, and he was over to the table in three long strides.

“Chris!”

Chris stood, smiling awkwardly across the table as he resisted the urge to throw himself into Zach’s arms. “Hey.”

Zach shifted under Chris’s piercing gaze and glanced down at the empty coffee mug on the table. “Can I, uh, get you-“ he gestured to the mug. 

“Oh, uh. No, it’s okay. But, go ahead, get yourself something. I’ll, uh, I’ll be right here.” 

Zach nodded and turned away quickly as Chris sat, his heart still pounding with anticipation.

When he came back, he sat down and set his mug on the table, and Chris could see that his hands were shaking. 

“Chris, before you say anything, there’s something I want to tell you.”

Chris furrowed his brow. “Okay.” 

Zach stared intently at his coffee mug and the hand clenched tightly around it. “When I was in New York, I…I missed you.”

“I missed you, too,” Chris said quickly, relief flooding through his chest. 

“You did?” Zach looked up at him for a second, confused, but he continued before Chris could respond. “I mean, I missed you more than I thought…more than I should have, probably. Look, I know we didn’t really hang out much before I left…”

Chris raised an eyebrow. Okay, maybe fucking each other in Zach’s trailer couldn’t technically be described as “hanging out” but still. He wondered what Zach was trying to say. 

Zach was staring at his coffee mug again, a perplexed look working over his features. “Why _did_ I go to New York, Chris? I mean, I know Neal and Corey were happy to have me there, but I feel like there’s something…” He brought his eyes up to meet Chris’s concerned gaze. “Were you…mad at me? Is that why I left?”

Chris took a deep breath as his heart thumped a little harder in his chest. “You don’t remember why you went to New York?”

Zach shook his head.

“You don’t remember…our plan?”

“What plan?” Zach whispered, and Chris could see the mix of confusion and fear swirling in his dark brown eyes.

Chris opened his mouth to answer, but the words wouldn’t come. He felt dizzy. _What do you remember, Zach?_

“Do you remember the last time you wore a white suit?” he asked quietly.

Zach laughed. “What, like, my First Communion?”

Chris closed his eyes, and when he opened them again he felt flush with a wild, foolish hope.

“Do you remember Vancouver? Do you remember Wolf?”

“Wolf? Chris, what’s wrong, why are you asking me all these questions? What’s happening?”

Chris swallowed. There was one more thing he needed to know. His voice was rough as he asked his last question. “Do you remember falling in love with me?”

Zach’s eyes widened. “How…how did you know?”

Chris leaned forward, his voice earnest. “I love you, too, Zach. I wanted to tell you, too. I love you-“

“To the stars.” 

Chris sucked in a breath, and Zach pressed a hand to his brow, shaking his head. “I don’t know why I said that.”

Chris reached across the table to tangle their fingers together. “Zach. There’s something I need to tell you.”

**

“You told him _what_?” Zoe shrieked in his ear. 

Chris winced and held the phone away for a second, before pressing it back against his ear. “I told him he has amnesia. And I…filled him in on what he missed.”

“You told him he mind-raped you?”

Chris cringed. “Jesus, Zoe.”

“Well?”

“Of course I didn’t tell him that,” Chris hissed. “What am I supposed to say? By the way, you don’t remember, but you drugged me and made me fall in love with you, we got married and had a life together, which I then forgot, but then remembered, but then you forgot, and Jesus fucking Christ, when did my life become a freaking soap opera,” Chris finished, tipping his head back against the bathroom wall with a resigned clunk. “Don’t answer that.”

“And you’re not at all worried about this little…omission?”

“I don’t know, Zoe. I mean, this is it, right, this is what I wanted – a clean slate, a fresh start. Why would I want to fuck that up?”

“Because he’s still the same person, Chris!” Zoe said in a burst of exasperation. “He hasn’t learned anything! What makes you think he won’t once again come up with the brilliant idea to drug you with some unknown substance because he thinks it will make you fall in love with him?”

“Because he _knows_ , Zoe! He knows how I feel now, and he would never…he would never have done that, before, if he’d known, he wouldn’t!”

“How do you _know_?”

“I just know, Zoe. We talked about, he said-“

“And you believed him. Despite knowing that he is, deep down, capable of being manipulative, possessive, devious-”

“Zoe, stop.” Chris ran a hand over his face. “Stop. I know, okay? I know how this seems, and I’ve thought about- I had the same concerns as you. For fuck’s sake, I was the one who warned him not to forget. You know? I thought he needed to remember if he was going to… But this is my chance, Zoe. _Our_ chance. And I’m taking it.”

Zoe sighed helplessly into the phone. “I just don’t want you to get hurt, Chris.”

“I _won’t_.”

“Promise me you’ll be careful around him. Don’t let your guard down.”

“Look, I gotta go, okay? I don’t want to leave him alone for too long. I should probably help him…process.”

“Chris…”

“Yeah?”

“You have to know - I want this to work for you. You and Zach…I want it to be real.”

Chris felt a flood of gratitude for Zoe’s words, and he found himself blinking back tears. “I think this time it is.”

**

“So the suits were my idea?” Zach asked, flipping a page in their wedding album. 

“Yep.” Chris was sitting next to Zach on the couch, watching the wonder in his expression as Chris told him about their life.

“Well, there’s no denying I’ve got good taste. We looked amazing.” He gave Chris a sideways glance. “How the fuck did I get you to go along with it?”

“You gave me the blowjob of my life in the dressing room.”

“Ah. So I knew how to get my way.”

Chris felt a twinge in his chest and wondered for the tenth time that day if he was making the right decision by not telling Zach the whole truth. But then Zach was looking at him, and all Chris could do was slide the album from his hands and touch a palm to his cheek. 

“Zach…” He leaned in, pressed their lips together, and felt Zach relax into his touch. Their tongues swiped lightly together and Zach pulled away with a wry smile. 

“Feels like our first kiss.”

It wasn’t, of course, it was their millionth, and now Chris remembered every one. He brushed his lips against Zach’s ear. “It’s the first one that counts.”

**

**Epilogue: Hawaii**

“I’m almost positive we had sex over there.”

Zach followed Chris’s eyes to a grove of palm trees that spilled out of the jungle and onto the edge of the deserted beach. 

“Chris, you’ve been saying that about every place with a horizontal surface that we’ve seen today. And some that have been distinctly lacking in horizontal surfaces. It’s like you were some kind of oversexed maniac.”

“I may have been oversexed, but you were the…never mind.”

“What?”

“Nothing,” Chris said, grabbing Zach’s hand. “And anyway, I haven’t heard you complaining yet.” He tugged him toward the circle of trees. “Now come on, let’s make some memories.” 

**

“I’ll grab us drinks,” Zach said later, as they approached the beach bar near their hotel. “Margarita, right?”

A strange look flitted across Chris’s face but then he grinned and pulled Zach in for a kiss. “I’ll get the drinks, baby,” he said. “Why don’t you find us a little table where we can make out while we watch the sunset?”

Zach smiled and held Chris close. “How can we watch the sunset if we’re making out?” he asked into Chris’s hair.

Chris turned his head and kissed Zach on the cheek. “I hear there’s a sunset tomorrow, too,” he whispered, chuckling. He pulled away from Zach’s embrace, winked, and trotted off across the sand toward the bar. 

Zach took a deep breath and closed his eyes for a second, resisting – then he gave in, slipped his hand into his pocket, and let his fingers clutch at the vial that he found there. Chris’s words, his smile, his kisses were a promise, a promise that they would watch the sunset together again tomorrow and the day after that, too. Zach remembered the words of the guy who’d given him the potion, an aging hippie in a patchouli-saturated room on the Lower East Side. “This is what you need, dude. One taste of this, and that blue-eyed boy will be yours forever.” Zach glanced over at the bar to find Chris smiling at him, his eyes crinkling at the corners. He mouthed “I love you,” and turned back to wait for their drinks. 

Zach pulled the vial from his pocket, and emptied it onto the sand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title from the song [Witch Doctor](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_FO1G7tIdLk).
> 
> _You've been keeping love from me  
>  Just like you were a miser  
> And I'll admit I wasn't very smart  
> So I went out and found myself  
> A guy that's so much wiser  
> And he taught me the way to win your heart_
> 
> _I told the witch doctor you didn't love me true  
>  I told the witch doctor you didn't love me nice  
> And then the witch doctor, he gave me this advice…_


End file.
